Where'd You Go, Bernadette

by Maria Semple

  DAVID WALKER: The building of the White Castle was like a movie in fast motion. Hundreds of workers descended on the place and worked around the clock, literally. Three crews a day working eight-hour shifts.

  There’s a story that during the filming of Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola had a sign on his trailer: “Fast, Cheap, Good: Pick Two.” That’s the way it is with houses. Me and Bernadette, we definitely picked “cheap” and “good.” But, man, we were slow. The White Castle, well, they picked “fast” and “fast.”

  The White Castle was ready to move into before Fox and Walker had closed the walls on the Twenty Mile House.

  DAVID WALKER: The You Catch It, You Keep It guy starts coming by, doing walk-throughs with the decorator. One day, he decides he doesn’t like the brass hardware. He has every handle, doorknob, hinge, and bathroom fixture switched out.

  For us, it was like Christmas came early. The next day, Bernadette is literally standing in the White Castle’s dumpster when the English guy pulls up in his Rolls-Royce.

  Nigel Mills-Murray did not respond to several interview requests. His business manager did.

  JOHN L. SAYRE: Who would like to drive up and find a neighbor digging through his trash? Nobody, that’s who. My client would have been happy to discuss a fair price for his fixtures. But the woman didn’t ask. She just entered his property and stole from him. Last time I checked, that was illegal.

  Overnight, Mills-Murray erected a razor-wire fence and posted a twenty-four-hour security guard at the entrance to the driveway. (The White Castle and the Twenty Mile House shared a driveway. Technically, it was an easement deeded to the White Castle over the Twenty Mile House’s property. This would become an important factor in the year to come.)

  Fox became obsessed with getting the discarded hardware. When a truck arrived at the White Castle to remove the dumpster, she jumped in her car and followed it to a traffic light. She gave the driver a hundred bucks to salvage Mills-Murray’s hardware.

  DAVID WALKER: She thought it was too tacky to use in the house. She decided to solder the pieces together with wire, like in the old days, and turn it into her front gate.

  Mills-Murray called the police, but no charges were filed. The next day, the gate was gone. Fox was convinced Mills-Murray had stolen it, but she had no proof. With Fox’s job at the Getty winding down, she quit and devoted all her energies to the Twenty Mile House.

  PAUL JELLINEK: I definitely noticed a different energy once Bernadette quit. I’d show up with students, and all she’d talk about was the White Castle and how ugly it was, how much they wasted. It was all true, but it had nothing to do with architecture.

  The White Castle was finally completed. Its crowning touch was a million dollars’ worth of California fan palms planted along the shared driveway, each lowered into place by helicopter. Fox became furious that her entry now looked like a Ritz-Carlton. She complained, but Mills-Murray sent over the title report clearly specifying that his easement over her property was for “ingress and egress” and “landscaping decisions and maintenance.”

  DAVID WALKER: Twenty years later, any time I hear the words “easement,” “ingress,” or “egress,” I still get sick to my stomach. Bernadette would not stop ranting about it. I started to wear a Walkman so I could tune her out.

  Mills-Murray decided to christen his new home by hosting a lavish Oscar after-party. He hired Prince to play in the backyard. Lack of parking is always an issue along Mulholland Drive, so Mills-Murray hired a valet. The day before the party, Fox eavesdropped on Mills-Murray’s assistant as she walked the driveway with the head valet, figuring out where to park a hundred cars. Fox notified a dozen towing companies that cars were going to be illegally parked on her driveway.

  During the party, while the valets snuck into the backyard to watch Prince perform “Let’s Go Crazy,” Fox waved in the idling fleet of tow trucks. In a flash, twenty cars were towed. When a raging Mills-Murray confronted Fox, she calmly produced the property title, which stated the driveway was for “ingress and egress.” Not parking cars.

  PAUL JELLINEK: Elgie and Bernadette were living at Beeber Bifocal at the time, with the idea they would move into the Twenty Mile House and start a family. But Elgie was growing distraught by what the neighbor feud was doing to Bernadette. There was no way he was going to move into that house. I told him to wait, that things might change.

  One April morning in 1992, Fox received a phone call. “Are you Bernadette Fox?” the voice asked. “Are you alone?”

  The caller told her she’d been awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant. It had never before been given to an architect. The $500,000 grant is awarded to “talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.”

  PAUL JELLINEK: A friend of mine in Chicago who was affiliated with the MacArthur Foundation—I don’t even know how, the whole thing’s so mysterious—asked me what I thought was the most exciting thing going on in architecture. I told him the truth—Bernadette Fox’s house. Who the hell knew what she was exactly—an architect, an outsider artist, a lady who liked working with her hands, a glorified dumpster-diver. I just knew her houses felt good to walk into.

  It was ’92, and there was talk of green architecture, but this was before LEED, before the Green Building Council, a decade before Dwell. Sure, environmental architecture had been around for decades, but beauty wasn’t a priority.

  My friend from Chicago came out with a big group. No doubt they expected some ugly-ass yurt made out of license plates and tires. But when they walked into the Twenty Mile House, they started laughing, that’s how gorgeous it was. A sparkling glass box with clean lines, not an inch of drywall or paint. The floors were concrete; the walls and ceiling, wood; the counters, exposed aggregate with bits of broken glass for translucent color. Even with all those warm materials, it felt lighter inside than outside.

  That day, Bernadette was building the garage, pouring concrete into forms and doing tilt-up walls. The MacArthur guys took off their suit jackets, rolled up their sleeves, and helped. That’s when I knew she’d won it.

  Receiving this recognition enabled Fox to let go of the Twenty Mile House and put it on the market.

  JUDY TOLL: Bernadette told me she wanted to list the house and look for another piece of property without a shared driveway. Having Nigel Mills-Murray next door was very good for her property values. I snapped some pictures and told her I’d run some comps.

  When I got to my office, I had a message on my answering machine. It was from a business manager I worked with often, who had heard the house was for sale. I told him we wouldn’t be listing it for a couple of months, but he was an architecture buff and wanted to own the house that won the “Genius award.”

  We ate at Spago to celebrate, me, Bernadette, and her darling husband. You should have seen the two of them. He was so proud of her. She had just won a big award and made a killing on the house. What husband wouldn’t be proud? During dessert, he took out a little box and gave it to Bernadette. Inside was a silver locket with a yellow photograph inside, of a severe and disturbed-looking girl.

  “It’s Saint Bernadette,” Elgie said. “Our Lady of Lourdes. She had visions, eighteen in all. You had your first vision with Beeber Bifocal. You had your second vision with the Twenty Mile House. Here’s to sixteen more.”

  Bernadette started crying. I started crying. He started crying. The three of us were in a puddle when the waiter came with the check.

  At that lunch, that’s when they decided to go to Europe. They wanted to see Lourdes, home of Saint Bernadette. It was all just so sweet. They had the whole world ahead of them.

  Bernadette still needed to get the house photographed for her portfolio. If she waited a month, it would give the garden time to fill in. So she decided to do it after they returned. I called the buyer and asked if this was acceptable. He said, Yes, of course.

  PAUL JELLINEK: Everyone thinks
I was so close to Bernadette, but I really didn’t talk to her all that much. It was the fall and I had a new group of students. I wanted to show them the Twenty Mile House. I knew Bernadette had gone to Europe. Still, I did what I always did, left a message to say I’d be stopping by the Twenty Mile house with my class. I had a key.

  I turned off of Mulholland and saw that Bernadette’s gate was open, which was the first weird thing. I drove up and got out of my car. It took me a second to understand what I was seeing: a bulldozer was demolishing the house! Three bulldozers, actually, pushing into walls, breaking glass, crunching beams, just smashing and flattening the furniture, lights, windows, cabinets. It was so fucking loud, which made it more confusing.

  I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t even know she’d sold the house. I ran up to one of the bulldozers and literally pulled the guy off and screamed at him, “What the hell are you doing?” But he didn’t speak English.

  There were no cell phones back then. I had my students form a chain in front of the bulldozers, then I drove as fast as I could to Hollywood Boulevard, to the nearest pay phone. I called Bernadette and got her answering machine. “What the hell are you doing?” I screamed into it. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. You don’t just go off to Europe and destroy your house!”

  Jellinek wasn’t at the office two weeks later when Fox left the following message, which he still has, and he plays for me. “Paul,” says a woman’s voice. “What’s going on? What are you talking about? We’re back. Call me.” Fox then called her realtor.

  JUDY TOLL: She asked if anything was wrong with the house. I told her I didn’t know if Nigel had done anything with it. She said, “Who?” I said, “Nigel.” Again, she said, “Who?!” but this time she shrieked it. I said, “The gentleman who bought your house. Your neighbor, Nigel, with the television show where they drop expensive things from a ladder and if you catch it, you keep it. He’s English.”

  “Wait a second,” Bernadette said. “A friend of yours named John Sayre bought my house.”

  Then I realized, of course, she didn’t know! While she was in Europe, the business manager had me transfer title over to Nigel Mills-Murray. I had no idea, but the business manager was buying it for his client, Nigel Mills-Murray. That happens all the time, celebrities buy houses in the names of their business managers and then transfer title. For privacy, you know.

  “Nigel Mills-Murray was the buyer all along,” I told Bernadette.

  There was silence, and then she hung up the phone.

  The Twenty Mile House, which had taken three years to complete, had been demolished in a day. The only pictures that exist are the ones realtor Judy Toll took with her point-and-shoot. The only plans are the comically incomplete ones Fox submitted to the building department.

  PAUL JELLINEK: I know she’s considered the big victim in all of this. But the Twenty Mile House getting destroyed was nobody’s fault but Bernadette’s.

  There was an outpouring of grief in architecture circles as word spread that the house had been demolished.

  PAUL JELLINEK: Bernadette went AWOL. I had a ton of architects sign a letter, which ran in the paper. Nicolai Ouroussoff wrote a nice editorial. The Landmark Commission got serious about preserving modern architecture. So that was something good that came out of it.

  I tried calling her, but she and Elgie sold Beeber Bifocal and left town. I can’t imagine. I just can’t imagine. It makes me sick to think about it. I still drive by the site. There’s nothing there.

  Bernadette Fox never built another house. She moved to Seattle with her husband, who got a job at Microsoft. When the AIA made Fox a fellow, she didn’t attend the ceremony.

  PAUL JELLINEK: I’m in a weird position when it comes to Bernadette. Everyone looks to me, because I was there, and I never gave her the chance to alienate me. But she built only two houses, both for herself. They were great buildings, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying it’s one thing when you build a house with no client, no budget, and no time constraints. What if she had to design an office building, or a house for someone else? I don’t think she had the temperament. She didn’t get along with most people. And what kind of architect does that make you?

  It’s because she produced so little that everyone is able to canonize her. Saint Bernadette! She was a young woman in a man’s world! She built green before there was green! She was a master furniture maker! She was a sculptor! She called out the Getty on its wasteful ways! She founded the DIY movement! You can say anything you want, and what’s the evidence against it?

  Getting out when she did was probably the best thing that could have happened for her reputation. People say that Nigel Mills-Murray destroying the Twenty Mile House caused Bernadette to go crazy. I think, Yeah, crazy. Crazy like a fox.

  An Internet search produces no clues as to what Fox is up to these days. Five years ago, there was an auction item listed in a brochure for the Galer Street School, a private school in Seattle. It read, “CUSTOM TREE HOUSE: Third-grade parent Bernadette Fox will design a tree house for your child, supply all materials, and build it herself.” I contacted the head of school about this auction item. She emailed back: “According to our records, this auction item received no bids and went unsold.”

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 13

  From Mom to Paul Jellinek

  Paul,

  Greetings from sunny Seattle, where women are “gals,” people are “folks,” a little bit is a “skosh,” if you’re tired you’re “logy,” if something is slightly off it’s “hinky,” you can’t sit Indian-style but you can sit “crisscross applesauce,” when the sun comes out it’s never called “sun” but always “sunshine,” boyfriends and girlfriends are “partners,” nobody swears but someone occasionally might “drop the f-bomb,” you’re allowed to cough but only into your elbow, and any request, reasonable or unreasonable, is met with “no worries.”

  Have I mentioned how much I hate it here?

  But it is the tech capital of the world, and we have this thing called “the Internet,” which allows us to do something called a “Google search,” so if we run into a random guy outside the public library and he starts talking about an architecture competition in L.A. inspired by let’s say, oneself, we can type that information into the aforementioned “Google search” and learn more.

  You little rotter, Paul. Your fingerprints are all over that Twenty Mile House redux. Why do you love me so? I’ve never understood what you saw in me, you big lunk.

  I suppose I should be honored or angry, but really the word would be nonplussed. (I just looked that up in the dictionary, and you know what’s funny? The first definition is “so surprised and embarrassed one doesn’t know how to react.” The second definition is “not at all disturbed.” No wonder I never know how to use it! In this case, I’m using it in the latter context.)

  Paul Jellinek. How the hell are you? Are you mad at me? Longing for me because life’s just not the same without me? Nonplussed, in either the first or second sense of the word?

  I believe I owe you a return phone call.

  You probably wonder what I’ve been doing for the last twenty years. I’ve been resolving the conflict between public and private space in the single-family residence.

  I’m joking! I’ve been ordering shit off the Internet!

  By now you’ve figured out that we moved to Seattle. Elgie was hired by Microsoft. MS, as it’s known on the inside. You’ve never seen a more acronym-happy company than Microsoft.

  My intention was never to grow old in this dreary upper-left corner of the Lower Forty-eight. I just wanted to leave L.A. in a snit, lick my considerably wounded ego, and when I determined that everyone felt sufficiently sorry for me, unfurl my cape and swoop in to launch my second act and show those bastards who the true bitch goddess of architecture really is.

  But then: Elgie ended up loving it here. Who knew that our Elgin had a bike-riding, Subaru-driving, Keen-wearing alter ego just waiting to bust out? And bust out
it did, at Microsoft, which is this marvelous Utopia for people with genius IQs. Wait, did I say Microsoft is marvelous and Utopian? I meant to say sinister and evil.

  There are meeting rooms everywhere, more meeting rooms than offices, which are all teeny-tiny. The first time I beheld Elgie’s office, I gasped. It was hardly larger than his desk. He’s now one of the biggest guys there, and still his office is minuscule. You can barely fit a couch long enough to nap on, so I ask, What kind of office is that! Another oddity: there are no assistants. Elgie heads a team of 250, and they all share one assistant. Or admins, as they’re called, accent on the “ad.” In L.A., someone half as important as Elgie would have two assistants, and assistants for their assistants, until every bright son or daughter of anyone west of the 405 was on the payroll. But not at Microsoft. They do everything themselves through specially coded portals.

  OK, OK, calm down, I’ll tell you more about the meeting rooms. There are maps on every wall, which is perfectly normal, right, for businesses to have a map on the wall showing their territories or distribution routes? Well, on Microsoft’s walls are maps of the world, and in case you’re still unclear about their dominion, under these maps are the words: THE WORLD. The day I realized their goal was WORLD DOMINATION, I was out at Redmond having lunch with Elgie.

  “What’s Microsoft’s mission, anyway?” I asked, wolfing down a piece of Costco birthday cake. It was Costco Day on campus, and they were signing people up for discounted membership, using free sheet cake as enticement. No wonder I get confused and sometimes mistake the place for a marvelous Utopia.

  “For a long time,” Elgie answered, not eating cake because the man has discipline, “our mission was to have a desktop computer in every house in the world. But we essentially accomplished that years ago.”

  “So what’s your mission now?” I asked.

  “It’s…” He looked at me warily. “Well,” he said, looking around. “That’s not something we talk about.”

  See, a conversation with anyone at Microsoft ends in either one of two ways. This is the first way—paranoia and suspicion. They’re even terrified of their own wives! Because, as they like to say, it’s a company built on information, and that can just walk out the door.